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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24547027">avant la nuit</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingForTheRevolution/pseuds/WritingForTheRevolution'>WritingForTheRevolution</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hamilton - Miranda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Cooking, France (Country), Indirect Dialogue, M/M, Small Village Aesthetic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:54:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,275</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24547027</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingForTheRevolution/pseuds/WritingForTheRevolution</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Fresh bread and garlic and mushrooms and melted butter, sunsets and flowers and tall, dry grass.</p><p>He moves to forget, and finds something better. Something simple, good, and warm.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alexander Hamilton/Thomas Jefferson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>67</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>avant la nuit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Thomas chooses the apartment with the warm bricks and the tiny kitchen and the books already on the shelves and the old record player in the living room and the white curtains over the windows, and he makes it his own. He has left a different life behind, a life with a sadness that wasn’t supposed to be there, and the previous owner of this apartment seems to have done the same. So he dusts the shelves and opens the windows and makes the bed, and he makes this life his own.</p><p>The town is tiny, almost far enough on the outskirts to be one with the countryside, but not quite. The streets are paved with chipping cobblestone, and vibrant moss peeks up around the gray and brown. The buildings are just as small as the town itself, painted in colors that might have once been bright but are now faded and dusty, but lively honeysuckle hangs from iron rails on tiled rooftops and it’s beautiful all the same.</p><p>Thomas dresses down when he goes to the shops, crisp button downs and dark slacks even though it’s June, the cuffs folded back neatly over his forearms and the top few buttons undone. He finds a basket in the kitchen that seems perfect for groceries, even though it is rather old fashioned, and uses it instead of the paper bags that most of the stores seem to have. He greets the people who wave at him, smiles at the children picking the tiny white flowers that grow in the moss between the cobblestone, and makes easy small talk in quiet French with the elderly shopkeepers and their young assistants.</p><p>It’s comfortable, this routine of his. He wakes with the sun and takes one item out of the boxes stacked against the wall, a steaming mug of tea within arm’s reach, until there are no more boxes to take things out of, and then he watches the curtains flutter in the breeze from the open window until the shops open and he can hear the whisper of voices from the street below.</p><p>He starts to recognize the people who walk into the shops around the same time he does, starts to recognize the shopkeepers and remember the little things they tell him so he can ask about their kids or their garden or their dogs as he browses the store.</p><p>He’s only been there a month when he enters the grocer’s with a greeting on his tongue, but the man standing behind the counter isn’t the smiling shopkeeper, nor his usual assistant.</p><p>Thomas nods in greeting and peruses the produce stacked in neat piles. Dirt-crusted potatoes and leafy cabbage and waxy apples, celery and carrots with crisp leaves and cartons of berries that stain the wooden shelves with blues and reds and purples. And as much as he observes the fruit, he gives equal attention to the man behind the counter.</p><p>He’s young. Younger than Thomas, definitely, but not young enough that Thomas feels the need to treat him as he would a child. His hair is medium length, dark, and swept up into a messy bun. There’s ink across his fingertips when he calculates Thomas’s total and his hair drops down into his face, but he brushes it back with one hand as he writes with the other, and the numbers end up slanted across the page. His eyes are as dark as his hair, glittering with something that Thomas can’t quite place, and he’s intriguing in a way that Thomas hasn’t known before.</p><p>He finds out later that the man is new. His name is Alexander.</p><p>Thomas sees him almost every day, except when the usual shopkeeper is there and on Sundays when the shops are shuttered. He’s not always behind the counter; sometimes he’s sweeping the stones outside or organizing the shelves along the walls, but there’s always ink staining his fingers, hair falling from his bun, and a mysterious fire just behind his eyes.</p><p>If Thomas didn’t have the need to go to the shops every day, Alexander’s presence would certainly be enough to draw him there, excuses be damned.</p><p>They talk sometimes, when Thomas is setting his items on the counter or when Alexander is running a broom across the floorboards. They talk about the weather, about the produce in the shops, about books they’ve recently picked up or put down. One time it’s poetry because Thomas still has the Baudelaire in his hand when he enters the shop. But most of the time it’s food, and that starts when Thomas goes to the grocer’s after exiting the butcher’s with chicken breasts in his basket. Alexander sees the neatly labeled packages, presses a waxy lemon and a handful of flaking garlic cloves into his palm, and tells him to cook it all with butter and white wine.</p><p>The ingredients end up scattered across his counter late that afternoon, the lemon and garlic very much out of place for what he had originally planned, but he refolds the creased recipe and peels the garlic and wings the white wine sauce, and it turns out much better than he expected.</p><p>Alexander is stacking mushrooms on the display inside the doors when Thomas strolls into the grocer’s the following afternoon. Thomas gives him a nod in acknowledgement, murmuring a compliment about Alexander’s recipe suggestions as he brushes past the man and his piles of mushrooms.</p><p>Thomas picks out the vegetables he needs for that night’s dinner, carefully checking the artichokes for broken leaves and the tomatoes for broken skin. He gives up scanning the shelves for other flavors to add to the recipe and has just turned to go up to the counter when Alexander slips in beside him and presents a bunch of flat-topped mushrooms that seem to bloom out of each other. He explains, at Thomas’s raised eyebrow, that he recognizes the recipe Thomas is shopping for and has been told that the mushrooms go considerably well with the pasta. He drops a few more garlic cloves into the basket against Thomas’s protests, and instructs him to be cautious with the artichokes.</p><p>They continue like this for another few weeks, Thomas shopping by a recipe and Alexander giving his opinion in the form of vegetable offerings. The recipes always turn out better with Alexander’s suggestions than they likely would have had Thomas just followed the recipe, but Thomas isn’t complaining. It gives him an excuse to talk to Alexander more often as he tries to figure out what makes the man tick.</p><p>He’s not sure what pushes him to ask, but he invites Alexander back to his on a Friday night in July and writes his address on the corner of the paper that Alexander is always scribbling on, the one that never seems to ever run out of space for another word, another sentence, another name or date or time.</p><p>Alexander arrives before seven. The ink has been washed from his hands and his wrinkled shirt has been exchanged for a clean button down, but his hair is still falling around his face and the fire still burns behind his eyes. He hadn’t added to Thomas’s purchase that afternoon, which had been odd, but he had obviously noticed the salmon and potatoes in Thomas’s basket, and the contents of the bag he brings make up for it. Lemons, honey, a small bunch of rosemary tied with twine, and more garlic. There’s also a bag of black cherries, but Alexander refuses to tell him what they’re for.</p><p>As amazing as Alexander is at recommending flavorful additions to Thomas’s cooking, he’s absolutely atrocious at sharing things in the kitchen. He still denies Thomas the knowledge of what the cherries are for, but doesn’t give him a recipe either, and takes up most of the counter with whatever it is he’s making. Thomas brushes a streak of flour across Alexander’s cheekbone and leaves him to his secrets, dancing out of the way before a squawking Alexander can throw powdered sugar in his hair.</p><p>The floors are sticky from the summer heat and the warmth from the stovetop does nothing to help the situation. The windows are open, but the dry summer air barely moves the curtains, and the sun paints the sky in deep, beautiful colors around the sprawling clouds. The salmon cooks slowly with the crisp potatoes and slices of lemon, Thomas finds a bottle of wine he had forgotten about but had been wanting to try, and Alexander continues to keep the cherry dish a secret as he pushes Thomas away from the oven with a firm hand against his waist.</p><p>They eat before sunset, sitting at the rickety wooden table in the center of the cluttered kitchen. Alexander finally reveals the cherry dish to be some sweet dessert, served warm with a dusting of powdered sugar. It’s almost custard, but not quite, and the fruit contrasts perfectly to the sweet dough. They sit on the balcony and watch the sunset as they scrape the final crumbs from their plates.</p><p>Alexander invites himself the second time. It’s been raining all day, and Thomas tries to shake the droplets from his umbrella before he steps foot in the store. Alexander pushes onions into Thomas’s arms and pulls bay leaves and thyme from behind the counter, and tells Thomas to buy crusted bread and that he’ll be there before seven. Thomas raises his eyebrows, but he pays for the onions and herbs and stops at the bakery before he heads home.</p><p>Alexander shows up with another bag of ingredients and raindrops in his dark hair, and he grins when Thomas asks what exactly they’re making. It turns out to be soup, and Thomas caramelizes the onions while Alexander cuts the bread, and the kitchen fills with the comforting sounds of cooking. The rain patters gently against the windows, windows with shutters that Thomas has forgotten to close but it doesn’t really matter because it’s peaceful, watching the drops slide down the glass and drip softly from the iron railing into the dirt of the garden below. The clouds are soft above and the windows eventually steam up from the heat inside and the apartment smells like fresh bread and melted butter and sweet onions. There’s more wine; a crisp, dry white, and it’s simple and good and warm and perfect for a rainy day. They can’t see the sunset behind the thick blanket of clouds, but Alexander pulls strawberries from the bottom of his bag and Thomas shows him how to make whipped cream, and the light dessert more than makes up for the dark sky outside.</p><p>There are days where Thomas starts to prepare a recipe before he goes down to the shops, and countless others where Alexander shoves produce into his hands when he walks into the shop and then shows up on his doorstep that evening with half a plan in mind. One night, Thomas throws caution to the wind and tells Alexander that they’re making pasta from scratch, screw the consequences, and Alexander laughs and tells him to buy a lot of flour.</p><p>Thomas is flipping through half a dozen recipes when Alexander arrives, and Alexander pushes most of the books off the counter and keeps one that he deems suitable, though Thomas suspects he chose it at random. A pile of flour takes the place of the books, and Alexander nearly crushes three eggshells into it before Thomas takes his hands and guides his motions into something gentler and more fluid. Thomas stirs the perfect nests of pasta in the bubbling water while Alexander whips up a sauce with tomatoes and heavy cream. Spinach and mushrooms are cooked somewhere in between, and they sit down to fresh pasta and the delicious warmth of a challenge accomplished.</p><p>Alexander continues to come over to his more often than not, and Thomas always lets him. They cook and they laugh and they exchange jokes over dinner, and Thomas starts walking him home because they can never seem to finish a conversation before Alexander walks out the door. They share stories and joys and sorrows, and they learn about each other.</p><p>Alexander writes, Thomas learns; he writes more than Thomas had thought was possible. The ink on his hands transforms into full sentences and fragments of ideas when he can’t take a moment to write them down on paper, and when he finally gets that moment, the fragments turn into pages of beautifully slanted writing that Thomas could read for hours on end. They spend an afternoon like that in Thomas’s apartment, each writing in their respective spaces, occasionally broken when Alexander shoves another three pages under Thomas’s nose every ten minutes. Thomas reads it all without question, and tries to go back to his own work only to look up, distracted, as he watches Alexander write instead. His pen falls, relaxed, between his fingers and the tip brushes absently against the sentences he’s scrawled across the page, but he’s looking at Alexander and how the sun falls across his face in a perfect way, highlighting the hair that will perpetually fall across his eyes.</p><p>They work their way slowly through the books on the shelves because Alexander takes an intense fascination in them the first time he sets foot in that room. Sometimes they read them together, sometimes not. They’re old texts with tea-stained pages and crumbling covers, and there’s usually a page or two missing right in the middle, but they make up their own stories for those parts and continue reading. Old flower petals slip out from between some of the pages, and there are recipe cards tucked between others. A letter is folded into the cover of one, and they take turns trying to decipher the handwriting before they realize it’s only half of a letter, and they spend the rest of the evening flipping through the covers of the books they haven’t touched until they find the other half.</p><p>There are more warm afternoons that turn into slightly cooler nights and there are more dinners and more wine and more soft smiles under fading sunlight. And one night, there’s dancing. The music that had been floating from the record player in the background somehow becomes the focus between the bubbling water in the pot and the clean slice of the knife and the snap of butter in the pan. A hand on Alexander’s waist and his hand on Thomas’s shoulder and his palm against Thomas’s own and there’s flour everywhere, soft against Thomas’s fingers and suspended dizzily in the air. Tiny steps around the kitchen and soft laughs when they bump their hips and their toes against the table or run into the edge of the counter, and when the song ends, it’s back to the quiet cooking and methodical slicing of the knife. And Thomas feels closer to him somehow, from that moment, but for now, his fingerprints are on Alexander’s waist and Alexander’s are on his shoulder and he can still feel the touch of Alexander’s fingers against his palm, a ghost of the moment, and it’s warmer than anything he’s felt before.</p><p>The nights slip easily into August, and Thomas finds that cinnamon and rich chocolate go well together, a sweet bite to the smooth and bitter cocoa, paired with slivers of orange peel crusted in crystal-like sugar that clings to their fingers. Iced tea, cold and fragrant and never too sweet, topped with mint leaves that slide smoothly against his tongue. The sound of a train in the distance as Thomas walks him home, the echoing blow of the horn and the screech of the wheels on the rails drifting distantly through the humid air. Warm lanterns glow on porches and candles flicker playfully in windows and there’s soft music coming from somewhere, accompanied by joyful laughter. They exchange a smile on Alexander’s porch, and Thomas wishes that the walk had lasted just a little bit longer.</p><p>Thomas picks up his violin again, the case soft with dust from months of disuse, but he curls his hand around the neck and his fingers still remember the shape of the fingerboard the press of the strings and the weight of the bow and the notes for those pieces, and he plays. The curtains whip softly in the evening breeze and the crickets chirp softly from their hiding places in the dry grass and the people passing by on the street below create a light chatter of background noise and Thomas plays. Somehow, the song turns into Alexander.</p><p>Thomas isn’t sure why.</p><p>Alexander always leaves. Sometimes it’s early, when he’s the one taking deliveries at the shop the next morning, but usually it’s late. After the lingering sauce has been soaked up with bread and the dishes are drying even though Thomas insisted he could do them later, when they’ve talked long after dusk and the only light along the street is the glow that dances around the windows of the houses. But he always leaves.</p><p>Thomas develops a taste for mushrooms. They fit the season, they seem to go well in everything, and they slice cleanly with a good knife. Curls of lime peel and bread crusts that crackle when he tears them, and stolen moments in the kitchen that are really just smiles and swipes of flour against a collarbone and pushing back hair that will never stay put, but Thomas wants them to be more.</p><p>It’s always afternoons with him, afternoons and evenings, but never mornings. Because mornings would imply something, and Thomas isn’t quite sure what that something is, but he’s not ready for it. So he settles for afternoons and evenings even though tradition says that evenings imply something more sincere than mornings. He settles for evenings of cooling and walking him home, and he settles for late afternoons of shopping and sometimes writing, and he settles the familiar sugar and butter and wine and open windows and fading light instead of taking a chance at something new.</p><p>One afternoon, an early afternoon, Alexander takes him to a small shop for a late lunch, hidden in a tiny corner that Thomas hasn’t managed to explore quite yet, tugging his hand to lead him into the shade of a table just inside the doors. They order sandwiches on fresh croissants with bitter greens and a plate of sweet fruit and sit at the quaint metal tables on the cobbled floor and split a plate of beignets over bitter coffee, leaving their fingers sticky with powdered sugar. They end up on a side street where the paving stones are decorated with children’s chalk drawings and the buildings have flowerpots hooked along the sides, spilling colorful petals across the white walls.</p><p>And when the shops are closed on Sundays, one day suddenly feels too long and too stuffy when it had once been a beautiful reprieve from the routine of the week. One day feels like too long to go without seeing someone even though, logically, they could still plan something on those days.</p><p>Their evenings become walks around the closed shops at dusk, and dusk turns into morning walks down to the stream when it’s warm. Thomas learns to enjoy the long grass that tickles the back of his neck as the sun shines on his face, and cuffs his pants as many times as he can so they can wade in the cool, flowing water. Thomas skips the flattest rocks he can find and teaches Alexander to do it too, one hand on his hip and the other on his wrist as he guides the first few motions.</p><p>They collect the flowers that grow along the paths and at the edge of the water, and Thomas presses each of them flat between the pages of the heavy books from the shelves in the living room, the pages already stained with the imprints of flowers from past owners who have used its pages for the same purpose. He flips through them a week later, looking at the lavender and the violets and the tiny yellow ones he doesn’t know the name of, and he comes to the rose petals he had plucked from the flower because it was too thick to press the entire thing. The petals slip to the floor and leave faded silhouettes on the paper that Thomas runs his fingers over, one of them perfectly circling the word <em>love.</em></p><p>And maybe Thomas loves him.</p><p>Maybe he loves that warm smile that’s always directed at him across the old wooden table, the bright eyes that always seem to focus on him when he’s talking, never wavering or looking away, sometimes lingering even when Thomas isn’t saying anything. Maybe he loves the strands of hair that never seem to stay in place no matter how many times Alexander brushes it back or pulls it up, the laugh that bubbles from his chest and the way his nose scrunches up when Thomas talks about his siblings. Maybe he loves the way Alexander talks like every word matters, and the accent that reveals itself on a few choice words and tells him that Alexander isn’t quite from here but has worked to make it sound like he is, even when his tongue betrays him on the vowels and doesn’t wrap around the sounds in the way he wants it to.</p><p>Thomas tries to keep things the same because he likes this, he likes what they have. He tries not to let his gaze linger too long, tries not to reach out when he knows he shouldn’t, tries to limit the amount of time he spends wondering <em>what if</em>. But it starts to feel different, and Thomas knows it’s his fault.</p><p>There are a few times when he forgets to tear his eyes away before Alexander looks up and catches his gaze. He finds himself making excuses to touch him—pushing hair away from his face, wiping flour off his cheek, picking grass out of his hair. And he zones out on several occasions when he’s watching Alexander dance around his kitchen or tracing the sunlight as it falls across his face and thinking about how he could be happy with this forever until Alexander taps him on the shoulder and brings him crashing back to reality.</p><p>There’s a day spent picking apples in an orchard a few miles away, wild and messy and ill-kept with splintering fences and tall grass and hundreds of wildflowers. They jump the fence and wade through the grass and Thomas swats tiny bugs away from his face with the back of his hand. The apples are rosy from the sun and the skin is crisp when he bites into it and the juice drips from his lips and down his chin before he can wipe it away, and Alexander laughs when Thomas jerks forward to keep the juice from spilling onto his shirt. Bees hum over the flowers growing in the field and the air is cloying with the scent of rotting apples that have fallen from the overladen branches and become food for the wasps and the rabbits and the tiny field mice. Loose dirt smudges softly across Thomas’s fingers and sweat drips down his back until he unbuttons the top of his shirt and rolls up the cuffs, and he’s not sure why this is the shirt he chose to wear but it’s too late now and it’s stained with dirt and bits of dry grass and it doesn’t really matter. Alexander’s eyes are on him when he glances up, shining softly to match with the smile that graces his lips, and then he looks away.</p><p>They go back to Thomas’s as always, stomachs full of sweet apples with plenty left to spare, and they cut the fruit paper thin with the skins still on to make a tart that looks like a rose, like the petals of the one that Thomas still has pressed between the pages of the book in the living room. The edges toast to a golden brown crusted in glittering sugar and they slice it while it’s still hot, sweet but sour and paired with a sparkling cider that bubbles impishly in the glass.</p><p>They’ve somehow run out of words for the night by the time the sun dips below the horizon. There’s not a conversation that needs to continue or some story that needs to be shared, but Thomas pauses in the doorway anyway because that’s what they’ve done every other night. A pause before they walk out together, before Thomas comes back alone. But there’s nothing to continue this time, no reason for Alexander to stay just a little longer, and when he pauses in the doorway, Thomas figures he’s forgotten something. But he rests his hand against the door frame and leans up on his toes, and he presses his lips to Thomas’s. When he pulls away, all Thomas can see is the fire behind his beautiful eyes.</p><p>Alexander’s hands are on his shoulders and his shirt on the floor and this time, for the first time, he stays. It’s slow and sweet, reminiscent of the sugary syrup from the apple tart, with careful lips and warm skin and gentle fingers and soft laughter that tickles his skin, and it ends</p><p>And then there’s sunlight across Alexander’s face and neck and bare shoulders, his fingers splayed gently across Thomas’s chest and his hips barely covered by the soft gray sheets. Thomas can feel wisps of air against his collarbone with every exhale, and maybe mornings aren’t so scary after all.</p>
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